Closing my eyes, I sit on the edge of Jurek's desk and cut myself off from the outside world. Octavia, one of my unit members, calls it “becoming one with the code”, and it does help as I work my way through the layers of security.
Once the private directories appear on Jurek's monitor, though, the tedious business of searching out the right ones becomes my task. I'm a fast reader and know what I'm looking for, but I'm well aware of the minutes ticking by.
“Jurek's on the move,” Cole says. “He got a message on his phone, and he's heading to the elevator.”
“Shit.” Why is Jurek going to his office during the party? Way to be a workaholic.
I take a charm, which is actually a modified data stick, off my ankle bracelet. It's designed to be plugged into my cable so I can download the files right into external storage. Although I could just upload them to the storage in my brain, getting clean data off my implants has always proven tricky. This is less convenient but easier in the long run.
“Get out of there.”
I dig my nails into my palms. “I'm not done downloading yet. Sixty percent.”
“Jurek's in the elevator.”
Sixty-five percent.
“I'm almost done.” I can't fail. Not this time. There's far too much at stake.
“He's on the floor.”
Eighty percent.
Go,
my sense of self-preservation is screaming at me. I clench my fists, determined to ignore it.
Ninety.
Not yet. I can't go yet.
The tracking bar reaches 100%, and I yank my cable from Jurek's computer. Although I've finally become anxious enough to feel sweat bead on my neck, my actions are smooth and well-rehearsed. I patch myself back together, return the data stick to my anklet and shut down the computer.
I can hear Jurek's voice outside. Is he on the phone or talking to a guard? Growing more worried by the second, I glance around the office. “I need an alternate exit.”
“You've got nothing in his office unless you can get into the ceiling vent.”
I groan and glance up. The vent is on the other side of the room. If I can slide Jurek's desk over and stack a chair on it, I should be able to reach it. Although it's not like security won't know where I went, it should give me a head start.
I don't get the chance to try though. The office door opens, and I dash around the back, delusionally hoping I might be able to sneak out behind Jurek. But luck isn't with me.
Luck is a poor partner.
Damn if Fitzpatrick didn't love to tell us that.
Jurek sees me, and he freezes, startled.
I knock him down on my way through the door, but he cries out. Seven meters down the hallway, the guard hears him and turns around. It's my mistake for not silencing Jurek, but something within me stilled my hand. Something that I
know
shouldn't exist.
There's no time to think on it. Cole is swearing as I charge the security guard. His gun is less my concern than his radio, but either way, I can't reach him in time. He whips out both, clearly thinking he can hold me at bay.
Instead, I duck low and knock him to the floor. He fires far too late, and the bullet misses by several inches, but the sound does enough damage. Backup will be coming any second, alerted by the gunshot or Jurek.
In three moves I've disabled the guard and taken control of his side arm, and I race toward the lobby. “Tell me where to go.”
The elevators are a bad idea. Security will lock them down any moment if they haven't already. Meanwhile, the glassy stairwell shows me three new guards charging upstairs, weapons drawn.
“Elevator shaft?” I ask.
“No, turn back around and go left. The fire escape.”
I'm certain throwing open that door triggers a silent alarm which we didn't bother to disable, but it's not as if my presence is a secret anymore. My damn shoes cut into my feet, and their ridiculous soles cause me to skid across the concrete stairs. Cursing, I yank them off as I run.
I take the stairs two at a time, my bare feet slamming into gritty concrete. My heart rate steadies. I'm good at running. Jumping too, and I glance down the center of the well as the door slams open two floors above me. I could probably fit between the railings, but twenty-two stories is a good twenty too many, even for me.
“Stop right there!” one of the guards yells.
Annoyed, I fire a single shot upward. The angle makes it impossible to hit anyone, but it might make them think twice about continuing to charge. Hearing them scramble, I return to running.
Eighteenth floor. Sixteenth. I start to get dizzy from the circling. My world has been reduced to a never-ending industrial gray loop.
Fifteenth.
“Two more, coming up from the basement,” Cole says.
Fourteenth.
Twelfth.
By the ninth floor, we're all in range of each other, and this time, when someone opens fire, I fling myself against a wall, and the world dissolves.
Chapter Two
Monday: Night of Escape from the Camp, Unknown Number of Days Ago
The snow is letting up at last as Cole unlocks the motel room, but flakes continue to land on my neck. They melt instantly, drizzling cold water down my back. I suspect if I were a normal person, I'd shiver. But I've blocked out the cold, and if I shiver, it's only from fear.
I do not show fear. That's weakness. Not only that, there's no reason for it.
Right?
Casually, I scan the parking lot for signs of threats. The snow cover has lightened the sky, and the clouds hang over the motel and rural highway like a heavy gray lid. A barrier, sealing us in.
Only four aging cars dot the spaces below, three of them covered in a couple inches of powder, suggesting they haven't been moved in hours. The asphalt isn't much better. It's been a while since a plow came through, but the glittering snow hides the generic ugliness of the scene. To my left, dwindling flakes dance in the glow from the motel's vacancy sign.
The Pine Way Inn is a dump, but a cheap one. Not to mention completely devoid of pine trees. Nonetheless, I very much hope one dumpy motel will be as good as another while we lay low for the night.
A whoosh of warm air rushes over me as Cole throws open the door. Swallowing, I take a second to confirm that I didn't see anything weird in the diner lot across the street, then I follow the others inside.
The room doesn't appear to have been updated since the early 2000s, but it's warm. I shut the door behind me and watch Lev help Summer onto one of the two double beds. She took a bullet to the shoulder in our escape from the camp, which is how the research-and-training facility where we spent our whole lives is euphemistically known. Though we tried patching her up as best we could with a portable first-aid kit, it's not enough. The bullet needs to be removed.
“You're going to be all right.” Cole, ever our unit leader and big brother, sounds confident as he speaks to Summer. He's always reassuring us. Always in control.
Summer nods, trusting him as we do, but I can see from the way she bites her bottom lip that she can't block out all the pain. Even with our implants, there's only so much we're capable of.
“You got the supplies?” Cole snaps.
Next to me, Kyle blinks out of his concerned stupor, and he dumps the medical supplies we bought on the next bed.
Cole's eyes are hard as he takes Summer's hand. The tension between Cole and Kyle has suffocated me since Cole unexpectedly showed up with our escape vehicle earlier. Is it because Kyle is an outsider? He's not part of our unit, and he's untrained. In some ways, he's just a friend I met while undercover at his college. But in reality he's so much more. He was my target, even though I didn't know it at first, and it's my fault RedZone captured him.
So is that where Cole's animosity comes from? I haven't had a chance to fully explain to him why I changed my mind about capturing Kyle. And despite everything, Kyle hasn't been unhelpful since the escape.
Lack of trust is all it is, or so I tell myself. Kyle has no reason to trust us. Cole has no reason to understand why helping Kyle is so important. I can't make myself believe there isn't more to it though. It's like the two know things about each other.
Each other and their relationships with me.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Not when we need to disappear before RedZone's operatives track us down. Not when Summer desperately needs medical attention. I have no time for complicated emotions at the moment, yet my first-ever love life has been a pain in my ass for months. Why should today be any different?
I jump to work too, both to rid myself of these thoughts and before Cole turns that stony gaze on me for being idle. Though he might have feelings for me, he's our leader, first and foremost. And this is my family. I won't let them down.
While Lev and Cole sort through the supplies and Kyle hangs back, probably sensing his outsider status, I grab a paper cup from the motel's coffeemaker and fill it with water. Once I have water boiling for sterilization, I check the time. The rest of my unitâthe ones who made the escape with us and Kyleâhave been gone only fifteen minutes since dropping us off, but it feels like ages. I don't like being separated when we're so vulnerable. Some people had to go shopping, however, and the rest of us needed to take care of Summer.
She rests her head against the pillows as Lev arranges the gauze, tweezers and other supplies on the nightstand. “Lev, no offense, but are you sure you should be the one to remove the bullet? You don't have the steadiest hands.”
Lev looks offended for a second, then shrugs. “Maybe not.”
“Sev should do it,” Cole says.
I frown at him. “I'm not HY1-Seven anymore. I'm Sophia.”
“Sorry, habit,” he mumbles, then he gestures to Summer.
“I can help.” Kyle removes the cup of boiling water from the coffeepot. “I have first-aid training.”
Cole crosses his arms. “We all have field medical training, far more than you, I'm sure. Aren't you a mutant? What do you need medical training for?”
A muscle in Kyle's cheek twitches. “Just because I can heal myself doesn't mean I didn't care to learn how to help other people. I was planning on being a doctor before you guys exposed my existence. You know, that means my goal was to keep people alive, not kill them like the rest of you were trained to do.”
I raise my hands, unable to take it anymore. “Stop. Just stop. Can we focus? Cole, why me?”
He's always singled me out. I used to think it was because he considered me the weakest member of our unit and thought I needed to be protected. Now I know I misinterpreted him, but still. I'm not the best at medical stuff. It's simply too bad that the people in our unit who do excel in medical training are stuck at the RedZone camp. We didn't have time to convince them to run away with us.
Lev is doing his best with the boiling water and rubbing alcohol to disinfect everything. “Because as Summer pointed out, I've never had the steadiest hands in our group.”
“And you'll likely be gentler than me,” Cole says.
I have my doubts about that, but maybe Cole's referring to the recent way I've been rebelling against the violent whatever-must-be-done attitude that's been drilled into us. He doesn't approve.
Or maybe, just maybe, he's trying to keep me from being near Kyle a while longer.
Summer smiles at me, but her face is pale and shiny with perspiration. The bandage on her arm has turned pink with her blood. “You'll do great. Someone just get this damn thing out of me.”
“Will do.” What else can I say? I've never extracted a bullet from a living person before. But then, the number of things I've never done before yet have charged full speed ahead into doing anyway in the last few weeks is astounding. That I'm not dead yet is a testament to RedZone's sadistic training.
I dump my uniform jacket on a rickety chair and go into the bathroom to scrub up. When I return, Cole has taken Summer's hand again, on her good side, and Lev has the supplies ready. Kyle stands off by himself, alternately watching Summer and keeping an eye on the pile of guns that's been dumped on the table. They're proof that we've all been better trained at killing than healing, as he said.
He lobs me a small smile as I meet his eyes. I try to return it, to take it as a sign he's forgiven me, but it's not really that kind of smile. It's too sad, and that sadness breaks my heart.
Wetting my lips, I turn away and unwind Summer's bloody bandage. Her breathing changes subtly as I examine the wound, and I know I'm causing her more pain that she can't block out. Luckily, whoever shot her was using conventional bullets. Malone, the head of RedZone and therefore the man responsible for creating us, probably gave orders to leave us as undamaged as possible. We're still valuable to the organization if they can get us back.
“It's not in deep,” I say. “This shouldn't be bad.”
Bad is relative. I manage to extract the bullet easily enough, but the muscle where it was lodged doesn't look good to my mostly unskilled eye. Ideally, Summer needs a real doctor, but it's not like we can check her into a hospital. Even if we didn't have to worry about RedZone finding us, there's too high a risk that the doctors might discover something abnormal about our biology.
“It's possible⦔ Kyle clears his throat. “It's possible that giving her some of my blood would speed up the healing.”
I'm getting ready to wrap up Summer's wound, and I pause. Kyle's mother was a brilliant bioengineer who used her research on how to speed up the body's healing process on one personâher unborn son. She cured Kyle of a neural tube defect that would have otherwise killed him as a newborn. Afterward, she'd destroyed everything to keep her research from falling into the wrong hands. When she was murdered years ago, that research died with her, which is unfortunate for many reasons. I've seen Kyle take a bullet and the wound close in minutes, but what he's suggesting goes far beyond that.
“What do you mean possible?” I ask.
Kyle leans against the table. “Whatever was done to me to alter my healing abilities, it's in all my cells. I can't regenerate her muscles like mine would regenerate, but my blood containsâ”
“No.” Cole's tone is firm. “We don't know how your body works, and we have better than average healing on our own. Sevâ
Sophia
, sorryâfinish with the bandages.”
I silently check with Summer, but her eyes are closed, and I suspect she's turned off as much of her conscious self as possible to control the pain. Without her consent, I'm not doing anything with Kyle's blood.
Kyle runs his fingers through his bleached hair. “I'm trying to help, so let's be honest here. Your real gripe is that you don't trust me because you're a control freak. Did you forget that all of
you
are the reasons that my life is in danger?”
I take a deep breath. Not all of us. Just me. I was the one sent to find Kyle at college. The one who turned him in to Malone before I realized what I was doing was bad. I'm not sure why Kyle isn't calling me out in particular, though I can think of reasons. None of them good.
Cole drops Summer's hand. “I am in charge here. Their livesâ” he waves his hand around to point to me, Lev and Summer, “âare my responsibility. You are the one whose presence here is a mystery.”
“I explained,” I say softly.
“Yeah.” Cole is clearly having trouble with my explanation, which isn't surprising. We knew he would when we planned our escape, and that was why we hadn't intended to include him in it. I have proof of the terrible things Malone's done and what RedZone is, but there's been no time to show it to him yet.
I glance between Cole and Kyle, worried that if I settle my gaze on either for too long, it will increase the tension. So I return my focus to Summer. Her eyes flutter open as I finish with the bandage.
Must focus on the important issues.
How many times do I have to tell myself this? These are the days when I wish I was more robot, more like one of RedZone's CYâAKA cyborgâclass. A CY wouldn't have this pain in her chest. She wouldn't wish Kyle could forgive her. Wouldn't suspect Cole's bad mood was influenced by more than brotherly concern for her and the others.
“You all right?” I ask Summer, hoping to change the direction of the conversation.
“Yeah.” She sits up straighter and pulls her blonde hair off her neck. “I need some water. Can't believe someone at the camp shot me.”
“Me neither,” I say to lighten the mood. “Nice way to treat your nineteen-year, multimillion-dollar investment.”
Summer smirks, so I hope she's feeling better. Cole, on the other hand, scowls. Not good.
For a blissful hour I'm able to keep things civil in our tiny room. We wash blood and grime off our skin, organize the remaining medical supplies and take stock of weapons and ammunition. Lev grabbed some snacks when we ran into the drugstore earlier, and we make sure Summer gets her fill before the rest of us touch them. Except for Kyle, we've all been trained to deal with deprivation, but Summer needs the nutrition, such as it is.
Just when a lull settles over us and I fear more bickering, Lev grins. “They're back.”
He lets go of the drape where he's been keeping watch and opens the door. Jordan, Gabe and Octavia rush inside along with a blast of cold air.
Jordan drops the shopping bags she's carrying on the closest bed. “I think we managed this without drawing too much attention to ourselves.”
“I'm not so sure about that.” Gabe tosses his bags next to Jordan's. “But we've still got goodies for everyone.”
Gabe comments lightly, but we all hope he's wrong. In retrospect, sending the three of them out to do the shopping might not have been the smartest move. They make an odd trio, conspicuous in their RedZone uniforms.
The uniforms, at least, might be mistaken as military since that's what they've been designed to mimic. But out here in rural wherever-we-are, we're atypical when seen together.
RedZone created us to blend in anywhere in the world. From Summer and Gabe's blond hair to Jordan's dark skin and every shade in between, we could do that. But only as individuals. I would stand out as much in China as Octavia would in Mexico. Put us together, and we look like a mini United Nations. That might not raise eyebrows in, say, New York, but out here it's a whole different world.
And then there's Kyle. Half Chinese, with black roots showing on his chin-length bleach job. Inconspicuous is not a word to describe us, and that's bad when we need to hide.
“How are the roads?” Cole asks, pulling one of the disposable phones from a bag.
“Getting better.” Octavia starts methodically laying out our new clothes.